Child Tantrums
Did you hear that story about the parents who couldn’t get their 3-year-old daughter to take her seat on an airplane? The Air Tran flight crew waited for about 15 minutes before kicking the family off the plane. The family was bumped to another flight (the next day) and given three round-trip tickets to any Air Tran destination as compensation.
As the parent of a young child myself (my son will be 4 next month), I know how difficult it can be to handle tantrums. We frequently fly back and forth between Chicago and Tokyo, so I’ve had my share of airplane antics as well. But I simply cannot imagine how these parents couldn’t get their child to SIT DOWN in her seat so they could buckle her in. The airline wasn’t demanding that she be quiet or stop screaming and crying; they just wanted her to sit down. What the heck were the parents doing???
The news stories make it sound like Air Tran was being pretty harsh, but let me tell you, if I were a passenger on that plane, I would have stood up and applauded their decision. It’s not fair to keep a couple hundred people waiting because one set of parents insisted on coddling their child. The way the article was written, it sounds like Air Tran only gave them 15 minutes to settle the child down. But people board at least 30 minutes before takeoff time, so I’m sure the tantrum was going on a lot longer than that.
I think they did the right thing, and if that couple never flies with Air Tran again, as they’ve threatened, then so be it. Good riddance.